1. Texts, emails, and phone calls. I’m awfully curious if there’s any campaign advisor anywhere who really thinks bombarding voters with an endless stream of emails, texts, and phone calls is going to win them over. It’s so bad from both the left and right that I expect it’s more likely to drive people to say politics can fuck all the way off and stay home out of spite. Maybe that’s the point? That feels far-fetched, but whatever I learned as a political science student a quarter century ago clearly no longer applies, so who the hell knows.

2. Return to office. No, I’m not talking about a plot from my actual management to get me back into my cubicle more often. This was a dream in which I went all the way back to set up shop in my old cubicle on G Street in DC – a place I haven’t been since probably 2007-ish. This nightmare version was, of course, much smaller and had far worse lighting than I remember, but the old workspace was instantly recognizable. I feel like being back there in my brain in the middle of the night should at least be some kind of billable time. It was a proper nightmare.

3. Candidate Trump. As we slide into the final days of election 2024, I’m completely perplexed by how this thing is polling inside the margin. I could rattle off half a dozen viable reasons why Donald Trump has no business holding an office of public trust, but there he is, showing every possibility of being returned to office to commence his scourge of the “enemies within” and casting aside centuries old constitutional norms and precedents. I don’t especially like Candidate Harris, but after listening to and watching Candidate Trump on the campaign trail, reading the key points of Project 2025, and observing the general antics of internet famous MAGA “personalities,” I don’t know how I could be expected to believe they’re competent to manage something as complex as the executive branch of the U.S. Government. It’s a serious business that requires serious people. A large swath of my countrymen are obviously seeing something I’m not… so I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for the distinct possibility that next week will mark the beginning of the bloody world turned upside down.